Rejected Before Embraced
by VampAmber
Summary: Celeg had every reason to hate her life. Dumped on a doorstep as a baby, she went on to lead a tortured life. She wants out, and gets her wish. She's sent to Middle Earth where her past is. She meets friends, and finally finds someone who understands her.
1. Angst, Angst, And Yet More Angst

Celeg sat at the lunch table, alone as usual. She stared down at her book while she ate, knowing that every other person in the lunchroom was probably laughing at her. 

She was a brain, but it wasn't that simple. She looked weird. She had long, curly, white-blond hair, which her adopted parents wouldn't let her dye into a real color, and her ears went to a small point at the top. "Elf girl" they called her. Taunted her mercilessly about. Always asking what happened to her pixie wings, why she wasn't two inches tall, how come she wasn't in a fairy tale. She hated them for it, which meant she was usually alone. And she wasn't quite five feet tall, and for a high school junior, that was short. She had a very slim body, even though she liked food. 

She read her book, ignoring the snickers behind her, the whispered comments about "Elf girl". She always had wished that she could just leave, leave the school, her whole life. That's why she read. For a brief time, she could escape from her life, not be Elf girl, but just be Celeg.

The bell startled her. She looked up from her book, and sighed. "Damn it," she muttered, going to dump her tray. "Gym," she grimaced. 

Gym was her worst class. Not because she was clumsy, the exact opposite, actually. She was amazingly graceful, and the kids treated her awful for it. She couldn't even count the many volleyballs, basketballs, and other gym equipment wielded by students that had 'accidentally' hit her. Hockey was the worst, those sticks hurt. She put her books into the little locker, changed into her gym clothes, and left the locker room.

"Ok, ladies and gentlemen, today, we play baseball," the teacher announced. Celeg's face fell. She took the spot the teacher assigned her, third base, and sighed. 

A girl slammed into Celeg a few minutes later. "Carla, you didn't need to slide into third base, there was enough time," the teacher yelled. Carla nodded, and then glared at Celeg. "Hello Elf girl. The elves leave you all alone, huh? Poor thing," Carla finished, and laughed.

Everybody at the school knew about how Celeg had been found. Left on a door step, just like in a story. Wrapped in a blanket, she had been wearing a small dress, nothing more. And there was a note, written in some strange language, with only the word Celeg written in English. So that was how she had gotten her name, from the note. The little curly haired girl had the whitest hair Mrs. Brockman had ever seen. And her eyes... Mr. and Mrs. Brockman adopted her about six months later. There was no sign of any family whatsoever. 

"Celeg". They never did find out what it meant. Nor did they ever figure out how to read the note. She still kept it in her room though, carried it with her when things got really bad.

"Celeg, you're up to bat," the gym teacher yelled, bringing her out of her memories. She grabbed an aluminum bat and walked up to the plate. She stood ready to swing, when BAM! The baseball hit her square in the knee. Celeg cried out, in surprise and pain. The teacher rushed over to Celeg, asking if she were all right, while the pitcher just stood at the mound, grinning. Celeg tried to get up, but her knee fell out from beneath her, causing her to hit the ground. "We'd better get you to the nurse's office. Elizabeth," she called a student at random, "come help Celeg to the nurse's office." Elizabeth rushed over, but only because the teacher had made her. She held out an arm for Celeg, then they walked out of the gym, towards the nurse's office. When they were out of site from the gym, Elizabeth pulled her arm back, Celeg almost falling before grabbing the wall. 

"Like I'd actually willingly touch an elf. Eww," Elizabeth said, walking way behind Celeg. "If you're not going to help, why not just go back to the damn gym, Elizabeth?" Celeg muttered through the pain. "Yeah right, and get in trouble?" Elizabeth said, and laughed. Celeg gritted her teeth and went onwards, leaning all her weight on her good leg, and grabbing the wall when she needed to. In the small hallway before the nurse's office, Elizabeth once again grabbed Celeg's arm and helped her. "Nurse Gellar, Celeg got hit by a baseball in gym. It hurt her knee real bad," Elizabeth said, almost sounding upset. She convinced nurse Gellar, though, who sent her back to class after thanking her for helping. She helped Celeg over to a seat, and asked her if she was ok. "It doesn't hurt that much, I'll just be going back to class now," Celeg said, standing up quickly. But the second she put weight on her leg, she yelled out in pain. The pain was so intense, she blacked out.

Little Celeg was only five years old, but already understood far more than a child of her age should have. "She's such a small one. Beautiful though. She's going to be a heartbreaker." It was her kindergarten teacher, Ms. King. She was talking to Celeg's adopted mother. "Celly is a pretty one. Odd eyes though, never seen that color before." Her adopted mother shook her head. Celeg should have been playing on the playground like the other kindergarteners, but instead, she was tending to a small seed she had planted in a Dixie cup a week earlier, when school had started. It was growing amazingly fast. It was recess time, and Ms. King had called her adopted mother in for a parent teacher conference. 

"Well, let's get to the real issue here. Celeg doesn't seem to get along very well with the other children. She prefers to keep to herself," The teacher said. "Oh, Celly's just quiet, is all," Mrs. Brockman replied, an excuse her and her husband had come up with.

Celeg stared over at them, wondering why they were talking about her, even though she was right there. Ms. King noticed her staring. "Celeg, why don't you go outside today for recess, ok?" Celeg nodded, not sure what else to do. She went out the door to the playground. Almost immediately the other kids surrounded her. "Why are your ears pointy?" "How come you look like a fairy tale person?" "Are you an elf?" "Do you have magical powers?" "Can you talk to trees?" The questions kept coming. She pushed her way through the group of children. "Hey! We were just asking! You don't hafta be so mean about it," one of the older kindergarteners yelled. The others started looking angry, and one girl even started crying. The somewhat older boy looked over at the crying girl, then turned back to Celeg. "You're mean, we won't play with you now," he said, authority in his voice. Celeg shrugged her shoulders. "Ok," she said quietly, not sad or hurt at all by this statement. This angered the kids even more. One kid threw a handful of sand at her. This encouraged all the other kids. They rushed forward and started throwing sand all over her. Then came the pebbles. They hurt, and Celeg started screaming. Ms. King and Mrs. Brockman rushed out when they heard this. Ms. King pushed through the group of kids and grabbed Celeg. "What happened Celeg?" she asked. One of the kids yelled out, before Celeg could explain, "She was throwing stuff at us, and calling us mean names." The other kids yelled things in agreement. Ms. King stared at Celeg at these comments. "Why Celeg, what's gotten into you. You need to have a time out." She grabbed Celeg by the collar of her dress, and sat her down in the time out corner. "Class, recess is over. Please come back in." She turned to Mrs. Brockman, "We'll have to continue this conference some other time."

Mrs. Brockman looked at her adopted daughter. "Celly, I'm appalled. No tv for a week when you get home young lady." Celeg nodded and looked down at her feet. "Ok, mommy, I'm sorry."

The memory/dream shifted then, to some place that afterwards, Celeg would swear that she had never seen, and there were people around her. It was a dark forest, and all the people looked odd. They all had white blond hair like her, but their ears were pointier, and they were wearing strange clothes. And not a one of them had curly hair; all had long, straight hair. They were saying something in a language that she didn't know, but understood anyway.

"Kill the freak! The abomination must die!" A woman looked down at Celeg, tears in her eyes. When she spoke, it was like bells. "I'm sorry my sweetie, but this is for the best." And then suddenly she was dropped.

"Celeg? Can you hear me? Wake up hun." Suddenly, Celeg wasn't back in kindergarten when everything bad had started, or in the odd forest, falling off a cliff, but at the nurse's office. Nurse Gellar was shaking her shoulders by now. "I'm awake, nurse Gellar. I'm okay now," she muttered. "Good," said the nurse, "Then lets take a look at that knee." Celeg rolled her pants leg up, and the nurse looked at her knee. "Ok, now let's see the injured knee," she said. Celeg was confused. "What do you mean, the injured one. This is the one that got hit with the baseball." Celeg looked down at her knee. No bruise, and now that she thought about it, no pain. "It, it must not have been hit that hard," Celeg said, almost to herself. The nurse nodded, and then told her to go back to class, giving her a note to give to the teacher.

Celeg tried to figure out what had happened all the way back to class. She was positive it had hit her enough to at least dislodge something, yet she felt nothing. She hadn't been passed out that long, otherwise the nurse would've told her. She kept mulling over it, until she reached the gym. Just as she stepped in, the bell rang; signaling that gym was over. She headed off to the locker room, still trying to figure it out.

She thought about it during her creative writing class, through American history, and all during Biology 2. She didn't do much in study hall, just for her thinking about it, trying to figure it out. She was doodling on a page in her notebook, thinking about her knee, and that odd part of her dream, with the strange lady who seemed so familiar, when the boy from her memory, the big kindergartener all grown up, snatched the piece of paper out of her notebook, holding it up. She looked up, noticing that the on duty teacher was elsewhere. He held the notebook paper up for everyone to see. "Hey look," he said, loud enough for everybody to hear, "Elf girl's drawing her family tree." She then noticed that she had drawn a picture of the lady from her dream, and hadn't just doodled. "Give it back Jacob," she yelled, jumping to grab the paper back from him. But seeing as she was short, and he was tall, she couldn't grab it. Just then the teacher walked back into the room. "Mr. Alexander, what exactly are you doing up sir?" the teacher asked. "Nothing sir. I was just returning this piece of paper that Celeg dropped. Here you go," he said, returning the paper that he had taken from her notebook. She glared after him as he went back to his seat. She crumpled up the picture and stuffed it into her book bag. 

Walking home from school, she pulled the paper back out of her book bag and looked at it. She had captured the woman perfectly. That was when she started wondering about maybe this woman being real, because she looked so much like Celeg. She could see herself in this woman, the nose, the shape of the eyes, the point of the ears. 

Celeg sighed. Yeah, like stuff like that happens anywhere but in the movies. Celeg folded up the piece of paper and put it in her pocket. She continued walking home, glad that the day was over.

Later, while doing her homework, Celeg had her radio blasting. Well, blasting compared to the level she usually had to keep it at. Mrs. Brockman, as she had begun to call the woman who had adopted her, got awful migraines, and couldn't stand loud music.

"Celly, how many times have I told you to keep your music down," Mrs. Brockman yelled up the stairs. Celeg turned the volume down one notch. She could hear a door slam downstairs, and knew that Mr. Brockman was home. A few minutes later, she heard him yelling "Celeg, you get down here right this minute!" in a very angry tone. Celeg rolled her eyes. She hurried downstairs to get lectured at, yet again, for some bad thing that somebody made up, something she hadn't done in school.

She walked downstairs, a grimace on her face. Mr. Brockman started yelling immediately. "What's this about you calling some girl a 'bitch' and spitting on her?!" Celeg just stared at him. "Would it actually matter if I told you that I didn't do it?" she asked. He just looked angrier. She went on, used to this sort of thing by now. "I thought not. What's my punishment this time?" He yelled at her some more, then gave her a double chore load and sent her to her room.

She walked back to her room, with each step getting angrier at her life. She closed her door, not even bothering to slam it. She put the lock in place, and turned her music back up. But instead of sitting back down at her desk to work on her homework, she put on her jacket, shoved the note from her real parents into her pocket, and opened up her window. She climbed down the convenient tree just outside her window, and snuck off to her secret spot, the place where she went whenever life just got too bad.

She sat down on the log, and stared out at the lake. She sighed. "Life just plain sucks." she said to herself. She took the note out of her pocket, and sat staring at it for awhile. "If only I could read this code. Maybe then I'd know where my parents were, and I could run away to find them." A tear dropped from her eye onto the paper. She shook her head, trying to quit saying things that made her sound like a first grader. "Yeah, everything has a happy ending, and my parents didn't really want to get rid of me, they just had no choice. Oh, yeah, I definitely believe that," she said sarcastically. She shook her head again, put the note back into her pocket, and started walking back home to do her homework. She stopped suddenly, and stared up at the sky. "I want out of here! NOW!" She didn't know why she said it, but it made her feel the tiniest bit better. She sighed, and jumped up onto the log that led the way out of her hiding spot. She walked along it balanced, because she didn't want her foot to fall in the lake and get her shoe wet. Then, almost out of nowhere, an enormous gust of wind knocked her off balance. Normally, she would've just dropped into the lake, no harm no fowl, except for one soggy shoe. But this time, it was different. The wind had somehow knocked her over sideways, and while the lake here was usually shallow, with a bottom of sand, she fell in and hit her head on a rock. Vision starting to dim, she had one last thought. "At least I got my wish," she thought, floating off to the black place that looked as much like death as she had ever seen.

Celeg woke up, her head splitting, yet her clothes completely dry. She looked around. "So this is heaven," she said to herself. "I was kinda expecting pearly gates and clouds, but if they want it to be a forest outside of a village, it's their choice." She shrugs, which makes her head hurt worse, and starts walking towards the village. "It must be far away, because it's so small," she once again said to herself.

As she got closer, she saw that the village wasn't far away, it was small. There were people rushing around, all of them at least a foot shorter than her. It almost looked like something right out of the pages of a book, except for the people being shorter. They all had curly hair like hers, but not a one had white blond hair. It ranged from regular blonds, to dark browns and blacks. They all looked up at her oddly, but went about their business anyway. 'Must be my jeans,' she thought, glancing back at all the people staring at her. Her headache was slowly getting worse, and she started to feel a very slight trickle down the back of her neck. She looked up, and noticed that she was in front of a pub, the sign saying "The Green Dragon". She felt the back of her neck, and her hand came back with blood on it. Her eyes grew wide, and just as a group of four boys walked out of the pub, she collapsed in a heap, blood still trickling out of the cut on the back of her head. 


	2. Not So Angsty, Which Is A Good Thing

Author's Notes: Ahh, the long awaited, the long promised, the long unwritten due to writers block, second chapter! Yes, I finally finished it. Not as long as I'd have liked it to be, but if I had waited till it was as long as I wanted it to be, you'd be reading it in the year 2010. Writers block SO sucks. Well, at least I DID finish, and that's the whole point, right? Well, another bit of bad news about this fic, not sure where to take the damn thing. All I have is what I basically want it to be about: acceptance. But that doesn't exactly write chapters worth of words, now does it? Well, I'm thinking of maybe going for romance, but I swear on the trilogy, I REALLY don't wanna be known as a Mary-Sue author. That's always been a fear of mine, and sadly, I think Two Blonds may have went in that direction. Damn. Let's see. Once again, I apologize for this chapter's severe lateness. That was mine and my writers block's bad. So blame it, okies? And what else? Umm... Damn, I think my writers block is starting to affect my author's notes now, too. Ooh, now that is just plain evil. Almost as evil as Yahoo, but not quite. Well, here goes, enjoy the chapter, don't expect the next one till they find a cure for writers block, and review please. I love reviews, I try and give them out as often as possible, and I love it when people return the favor. Oops, shutting up now...

Disclaimer: I don't own diddly squat crap. I only own the idea, the quotes that you may take from this, and damn it, Celeg has been, and always will be, MINE. Don't even think about taking her. And I got a sword now. Real one. I swear I do. It's beautiful, too. An Aries. And also, a few more things that are mine. The word shit-fic™. The phrase 'pile of dead™'. Other stuff that's mine. Celeg™, VampAmber™, and Amber™ are all mine. The Lord of the Rings stuff I don't own. Okies? Good, always good to be sure on that front. 

Author's Note 2: Hehehe, don't you just love those symbol thingies that Microsoft Works Word Processor have? I do, as you can see above with my ™ craze. Hehehe, other fun stuffs there too. © ¥ ¶ ± ® Umm.... Done now. Sorries. *weeps softly for the brain cells she lost last dye job*

Author's Note 3: Ahh, damn, I'm rewriting the end of this, and I'm WAY too lazy to go through a rewrite the Author's Notes and Disclaimer all over again, okies? Anyways, I wrote the end of this the first time, and damnit! It turned it into a total Mary-Sue. So I had to go back and rewrite the last few paragraphs. And also, I wrote this AN before I went and rewrote the stuffs, so don't blame this me if it sucks badly, blame, umm, future me? I confuse even myself most of the time, is that bad?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Merry, Pippin, Sam and Frodo had been having a grand old time at the pub. Pippin had once again practically drank his weight in pints, and the others had all laughed at his severe drunkenness. After Pip's eighth pint, the others had decided that maybe he'd had enough. Almost dragging Pippin, they walked out of the pub just in time to see a blond woman fall onto the ground. Frodo and Sam rushed over to see if she was all right while Merry helped his cousin not fall down like the woman.

"Miss? Are you all right?" Frodo asked her softly. After no response, he looked over at Sam, a worried look on his face. "I think she's fainted, Mr. Frodo. What should we be doing with her?" Sam asked. Frodo looked down at her, then looked back at Sam. "We'll take her to Bilbo's. Maybe he'll know what to do." Sam and Frodo lifted her up off the ground, and Frodo motioned over to Merry to follow them. Walking slowly, as to not drop the woman, Sam and Frodo, followed by Merry and Pippin, traveled down the road to Bilbo's home. A drop of something wet hit Frodo's hand just then, and he looked down at the girl's head, where blood was trickling out of a pretty big cut on top of a lump. "Sam, wait a minute," he called to his friend, and fished a clean handkerchief out of his pocket. He tried tying it around her head, but couldn't, as he could only use one hand to do it. So he just settled for holding it against the cut. He quickly wiped the blood off onto his jacket leaving behind a small red streak of a stain, and told Sam to start walking again. A few minutes later, the girl let out a groan, but didn't wake.

Frodo looked down at the girl, wondering from where she came from. She was wearing an odd pair of pants, and had a very strange jacket on, made out of some sort of waterproof fabric. Her shoes looked as if they were made out of white leather, and her shirt had what seemed to be pictures on it. And not only did her clothing look weird, but she herself didn't look like anything Frodo had ever seen. She had white hair like an elf, but it was curly, like a hobbit's. Her face had the refined beauty of an elf, but she was much too short to be one. Very odd indeed. 

They had just reached Bag End when Frodo looked up again. "Merry, get the door." Frodo told his friend. Merry rushed forward and opened it, and Frodo said "now see if you can find Bilbo. We're going to have to lay her down on the couch." Merry took off, leaving Pippin, who was starting to sober up, in the hallway. Sam maneuvered his way into the front room of the hobbit hole, and placed the girl's feet on the couch. Frodo grabbed a pillow, and put it under the girl's head as he lay her down. Frodo looked down at his hand, still stained a dull red from the girls blood. "She must've hit her head really hard," he pondered aloud. Sam nodded his head in agreement. "She looks strange, Mr. Frodo. I wonder where she could be from," Sam said, looking the girl over. "I was thinking just that Sam. She almost looks like an elf..." Frodo was cut off as Bilbo rushed into the room, followed closely by Merry. "And she just fainted in front of the Green Dragon," Merry finished, having been telling Bilbo what had happened. Frodo looked at his uncle, "She hit her head, it was bleeding," he said, holding his stained hand up, almost as proof. "Oh, my," Bilbo said, rushing to the couch to check the girl. 

While Bilbo fussed over her, checking her wound, her breathing, things of that sort, the other three hobbits just stared at her. She was like nothing they had ever seen. Just then, Pippin, who was finally starting to sober up a bit, walked over to the three and asked "Who's the girl?"

"While you were drunk, we rescued her Pip," Sam said over to the confused hobbit. The remark just made him more confused. "Rescued? From a dragon or something?" Pippin asked, puzzlement covering his face. 

Frodo butted in, before Pippin could get any more confused. "She collapsed outside of the Green Dragon, just as we were walking out. She's got a nasty cut on her head, and a large lump underneath it. We brought her here, and that is pretty much the story." Frodo looked back over at the couch, at the girl lying on the couch. Pippin just grinned, "Oh." A moan came from the girl, and the others hurried over, eager to see if she'd wake up. She sat up slightly, and groaned again. She grabbed the back of her head, her hand hugging the handkerchief. "My head is killing me." She pulled her hand back, with the blood-soaked piece of cloth stuck to it. She blinked a few times, and looked at the piece of cloth. "No wonder. Man, I really bled," she said to herself before looking up finally. "Where the hell am I?" She asked, shaking her head, trying to get a clearer picture of her surroundings. She rubbed the lump again, and looked around the room. "Cool house," she muttered, finally taking in the short strangers surrounding her. 

"I'm guessing you're the ones that brought me here. Umm, thanks, I think," she said, getting more confused by the second. Suddenly, it dawned on her. "Oh, yeah, I forgot, I'm dead. Not an easy thing to forget, musta really been knocked out there." She looked around again; "Weird thing you've got going here, I always thought heaven would be fulla Angels or something." The five hobbits just stared all through her ramblings. This girl had obviously hit her head really hard, to be thinking things like this. 

Frodo stepped forward, wary of her in case she was mentally unbalanced or something. "This isn't heaven; it's the Shire. And we're no Angels, only mere hobbits. Are you okay miss?" The look of concern reappeared on his face. She looked over at him and smiled. "You're sure this isn't heaven? Because last thing I remembered before getting here was drowning. And that kind of thing usually makes a person dead." She scooted on the couch until she was sitting up. She grabbed the back of her head, and yelped in pain. "Ok, that was very painful." She rubbed at her slowly disappearing lump, and winced in pain. "You got any ice, maybe? Something really cold?" She asked, unsure of where she was, but sure of the pain at the back of her skull. Bilbo nodded, "Yes; I'll go get you a cold, wet rag." He scurried away, to what Celeg assumed was the kitchen. 

She dropped her head, which gave the four remaining hobbits a full view of her bloody white hair and the lump that was still slowly getting smaller. Frodo tried speaking to the peculiar girl again. "Who are you, exactly? And where do you come from?" He asked her, still keeping his distance, just in case. She held out her hand, as if to shake. "I'm Celeg, glad to meet you. And I'm from Maine, really small town, you wouldn't know of it. And you would be? And this would be where, again?" She finished. Frodo held his hand out hesitantly, and she shook it enthusiastically. He answered her questions, the last one first. "This is Hobbiton, part of the Shire. And I would be Frodo, Frodo Baggins, and that," he pointed to his friends as he said their names, "is Meriadoc Brandybuck, Merry for short. And that is Samwise Gamgee, Sam. And that," he pointed to Pippin lastly, "would be Peregrin Took, Pippin for short, or just Pip." She looked from one to the next as he said the names. "Ok, let's see, Frodo, Merry, Sam, and Pippin. Right?" They all nodded. "Good," she went on, "now could you tell me again where I am? Cuz I am getting really lost here." Frodo looked at the girl, Celeg, and started all over again. "You're at Bag End, in Hobbiton, which is in the Shire." Celeg still looked confused. "Middle Earth?" He asked, not knowing how this girl could know so little about where she was. He looked even more confused at her confusion. "You don't know where Middle Earth is?" She nodded solemnly. "Is it anywhere near the United States?" She asked, the slightest hint of fear entering her voice and eyes. Now it was the hobbit's turn to look confused. "United States?" Pippin asked, trying to figure out where that could be.

"The U.S.? Anything like that?" The fear crept more into her voice, more into her eyes. The hobbits all shook their heads. "Ok, I am definitely not in Kansas anymore," she said, voice filled with fear now. Pippin whispered over to Merry, "but I thought she said she was from U.S.?" Merry just shushed him. 

Her eyes grew wide, and started filling with tears. Frodo was about to walk over to help her, if he could, when Bilbo walked in with the cold, damp cloth. One look at the crying Celeg and he instantly felt sorry for her. "Oh, my. I'll go put on the teakettle. Tea should help make her feel better. Maybe." He handed the cloth to Merry and went back into the kitchen. He walked over to Frodo, who was just staring at the crying girl, not sure what to do next, and handed him the cloth. Frodo nodded a thanks to Merry, who went over to stand by Sam and Pippin. The three hobbits had all realized by now that they weren't needed very much at the moment. Carrying the cloth, Frodo walked over to Celeg, still unsure as of what to do. He went with the only thing he could think of. He pressed the wet cloth against the lump/cut, and she once again yelped in pain. "Ow! That hurt," she cried. He backed away, muttering "I'm sorry," over and over again. She looked over at him, the initial shock done with. "It's ok, Frodo, it was just surprising." She leaned her head back into the cool comfort, and sighed. But the cloth did more than soothe. She felt more dampness than she shouldn't have from the cloth, and pulled it away to reveal that the cut had started bleeding again. She grimaced at the now-red cloth. "That cannot be good," she muttered. 

Putting the cloth back to try and hinder the bleeding a little with one hand, she started searching through her pockets for a tissue with the other. Everything fell out as she searched, including two pieces of paper, which Frodo picked up. Sam and Merry looked over his shoulders as he unfolded the lined piece, Pippin trying to see through the hobbit blockade they had built around Frodo. He ended up just walking around to the front, and seeing that way. Frodo unfolded it, and there was a perfectly drawn picture of an elf. A very pretty one at that. He unfolded the second, un-lined sheet of paper to reveal a note, written in what seemed to be Elvish. There was one word at the bottom that the hobbits could read. Celeg. They looked over at Celeg, who, having finally found a tissue, was dabbing at her cut. "Why do you have a drawing of an elf and a note written in Elvish in your pocket?" Merry asked her. Frodo looked over at her, thinking he knew. Celeg was a different-looking elf, that was for sure. She looked confused again, a look that was becoming a trend in the room. "Elvish? Is that what that note's written in?" She paused for a second, thinking. "What's Elvish?" She asked.

"The ancient language of the elves." Sam told her, looking back and forth from Celeg to the drawing, noticing a faint family resemblance. "Elves? They're real? Since when?" She asked, confusion overtaking panic. "Since the beginnings of Middle Earth," Merry told her. Pippin held up the picture. "And this is an elf." He looked so proud of himself that Merry didn't even bother to yell at Pippin for stating the obvious.

Bilbo walked in with a cup of tea for Celeg, and Frodo stopped him. "We need to send out a message," he told the older hobbit. "We think she's an elf, and that she hit her head hard enough to make her think these strange things. Send for an elf from Mirkwood, and one from Lothlorièn as well. Maybe they would know who she is." Bilbo nodded, and rushed off to send the message, leaving the tea behind for the elf girl.

Frodo grabbed the teacup, and walked over to the confused girl, passing the cup to her. She took it and smiled at him, the fear still present in her features, but not so much as before. "Thanks," she muttered under her breath before she took a sip of the tea. 

"It was nothing, Celeg," Frodo answered back, using the girl's name for the first time. "Celeg? Isn't that an Elvish word?" He innocently asked the girl.

"I wouldn't know," Celeg said back, and took a sip of tea.

Frodo looked at the girl, confused now. "You mean you're an elf and you..." But he didn't have the chance to finish his question, because Celeg had bolted up the second he called her an elf, and she had started screaming. 

"I am not an elf!" She wailed at the top of her lungs, almost forgetting that it was a hobbit who didn't know any better who had said it, and not one of her classmates. "I am not Elf Girl!" She screamed, shriller this time. And almost before the second scream had left her lips, she realized that the person she was screaming at, Frodo, didn't know about the teasing kids or the awful nicknames. "Oh, my God. Frodo, I'm so sorry. I really didn't mean it, it's just..." She stopped, not sure how to explain this situation without telling her life story. "It's just," she tried again, "back from where I'm from, the people my age teased me by calling me Elf Girl, because there are no elves there and they thought they were being funny. I meant no harm to you when I said it, and I'm sorry I yelled. It's kind of a sensitive subject to me. I'm sorry." She gave him a watery grin, and held her hand out to the frightened looking hobbit. 

"It's... It's ok Celeg. I didn't know those things." He paused and looked at her, the information sinking in. "You were not liked back at home? Why would anybody not like you?" He asked, confused that anybody could dislike such a nice-seeming girl like Celeg.

"It's hard to explain, really. I guess most of them just have sticks up their as..." She stopped what she was saying, not wanting to cuss in front of the little hobbit. The hobbits were so short that she almost couldn't help but think of them as children, at least partially. Grinning slightly, she continued. "A lot of people back there hate others for no other reason than if they make someone feel bad, they don't feel quite as bad themselves. Kinda a power-trip thing or something: Cause suffering, and you won't suffer as much." She looked down, somewhat embarrassed that she just spouted all that stuff about humans back on earth. The little hobbit must think it's an awful place by now, she thought to herself.

"It sounds like a pretty odd place," Frodo commented, not sure what to think of the information he had just been presented with.

"It is," Celeg replied, nodding her head. "One really odd place." Then she thought 'Hope I don't hafta go back any time soon.'

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Note 4: Wow, that went much better than I had hoped. No Mary-Sue-ness! *celebrates* It's always good to know when one can resist writing garbage like a Mary-Sue. Very comforting. Well, shutting up now, just had to comment on the fact that I did good. *beams* Well, now I'll just leave you to reviewing. *cough*reviewthedamnficalready!*cough* Hehehe, so much for subtlety. Hehehe, as the words between the coughs say, just quit reading and go review already. You're still reading, aren't you? Didn't I tell you to review? Quit reading and review! I said quit reading! Quit! Ok, stopping now, just had to get a bit of insanity in here somewhere. Now you really can quit reading and go review. GO! Just kidding. I think....


End file.
